cjoepar wrote:...a paladin who wanted to fight with a pike so he could fight from the second rank in melees...

That doesn't sound bad at all to me. Just have to make sure not all the fights are toe-to-toe slugfests. Throw in plenty of 'long-armed' creatures and things with ranged attacks, attacks from above (flying things), etc. (which would be a good thing to do in any case...).

Also, if someone gets within the reach of the pike, the paladin might have to drop it, and fight toe-to-toe after all!

cthulhudarren wrote:I like the DCCRPG concept that you don't get to pick your background.

Not true.

DCC, pg. 21, 2nd paragraph wrote:Note that a character’s occupation need not be determined randomly. If a player has a strong sense of the character’s background, he should feel free to use it. Starting trained weapon and trade goods can be determined thematically with the judge’s approval.

cjoepar wrote:...a paladin who wanted to fight with a pike so he could fight from the second rank in melees...

That doesn't sound bad at all to me. Just have to make sure not all the fights are toe-to-toe slugfests. Throw in plenty of 'long-armed' creatures and things with ranged attacks, attacks from above (flying things), etc. (which would be a good thing to do in any case...).

Also, if someone gets within the reach of the pike, the paladin might have to drop it, and fight toe-to-toe after all!

Yep. And when you factor in all the times when such a ridiculously long spear isn't going to be able to maneuver at all (hello narrow corridors and tight turns! hello small rooms!) it can become more of a liability.

finarvyn wrote:With all respect, Colin, I don't think that the desire to win at all costs is min/max-ing at all. Winning is being competitive (sometimes obsessively so) and can happen in any game system.

I think perhaps I wasn't clear. In summation, my point is:

1) Some folks have an desire to win at all costs/avoid losing in combo with insecurity (hence "insecure desire" as opposed to just "desire").
2) That results in said folks

Colin wrote:"playing the numbers to ensure they have no weaknesses at all or pumping the character up in a key area to the serious detriment of others."

And my point 2 sounds just like your statement that...

finarvyn wrote:I would define as the min/max. Manipulating the system to take advantage of the numbers.

So, you clearly don't disagree with me on what it *is* (playing numbers/manipulating the system), but do you disagree that the desire to maximise win/avoid losing is what is behind 99% of min-maxing cases? If so, what do you think is behind that drive to min-max in the vast bulk of cases?

Colin

The problem with this definition is that "insecure" does all the work, but there is no guidance about what it means. When does a player's desire to keep his character "not fail" become "insecure"?

Virtually all players (even those who are pretty clearly not min/maxing) exhibit this behavior.

Colin: Min-Maxing is the insecure need to *win* (or avoid losing, which is nearly the same thing), blah.
Player: Well my PC, Irving the Imp, is going to try and get the Magnificent Empyrean Skattershield!
Colin: Why do you want him to get the Skattershield?
Player: Uh -- because it uses the power of the Great Beyond to protect Irving from unholy attacks.
Colin: Why do you want Irving to be protected?
Player: I guess so he can be stronger in combat.
Colin: Why does he need to be "stronger in combat"?
Player: So there's less chance he'll die underground.
Colin: By "less chance he'll die underground" you mean, "succeed at or have less chance of failing at" yes?
Player: I suppose.
Colin: How is that any different from "win at or have less chance of losing at"?
Player: Oh. ...

Player: ... wait, so I'm a min/maxer if I play my character such that he tries to not die?
Colin: Only if you're insecure about it.
Player: What on earth does that mean?
Colin: ....

There's an obvious difference between someone playing a character in-game according to how said character might actually develop (including the obvious fact that a character would want to win/not die), and someone who goes to pains to take only the most optimum choices/plays the numbers to maximize strengths/minimize weaknesses, concept and rationality be damned.

Of course, where you draw the line and thus where it becomes more unacceptable, is one of those things that varies from group to group (because different groups have different approaches to what is acceptable in terms of "playing the numbers" and the various ways in which this manifests). In most cases I'd say it becomes "insecure" when the Player is going to extremes beyond the rest of the group and what is acceptable to that group. If their concern about not winning/possibly losing drives them to such extremes that it's obvious something is amiss by the standards of the rest of the group, then their min-maxing becomes a problem, whether in chargen or later.

Probably not the best explanation I could give, but I've had a long day and I've got a stinking headcold.

cthulhudarren wrote:I also hate the creeping in of MMORPG things like all party players having to fill a specific role, be it "tank", "dps","healer", etc.

I am the only person in my group who doesn't play online games but everyone is always trying to shove the characters into one of these roles in our games.

I rage against these roles. Talk about limiting.

First, let me say that I am genuinely sorry that I cannot just let this slide by without response. I have a self control problem.

The idea that party roles like "tank," "healer," and "damage dealer," originate in MMORPGs is absolute, complete, utter, 100% fully buffalo chips.

Console RPGs, and the later developing MMORPGs, took ideas already existent in table-top games and translated them to the video game stratum.

If you don't believe that, you are being obtuse - look at any D&D module from before 3rd edition. You will find a section where the author of the module mentions how many character, what level, and what classes are "needed" according to how they wrote the module.

Many of them specifically say that a "balanced" or "well rounded" party is best - and are directly referring to the idea of party roles when they mention such.

WoW (and other games) might have popularized the lingo, but AD&D invented what you are complaining about.

Colin wrote:There's an obvious difference between someone playing a character in-game according to how said character might actually develop (including the obvious fact that a character would want to win/not die), and someone who goes to pains to take only the most optimum choices/plays the numbers to maximize strengths/minimize weaknesses, concept and rationality be damned.

Of course, where you draw the line and thus where it becomes more unacceptable, is one of those things that varies from group to group (because different groups have different approaches to what is acceptable in terms of "playing the numbers" and the various ways in which this manifests). In most cases I'd say it becomes "insecure" when the Player is going to extremes beyond the rest of the group and what is acceptable to that group. If their concern about not winning/possibly losing drives them to such extremes that it's obvious something is amiss by the standards of the rest of the group, then their min-maxing becomes a problem, whether in chargen or later.

Probably not the best explanation I could give, but I've had a long day and I've got a stinking headcold.

Colin

Regarding your first sentence, I agree. That's why I disagree with the focus of your definition. I think min/maxing is not (only, or even primarily) about wanting to create a powerful character (to "win"). A player might want his PC to be powerful -- invincible even. But I don't think he's min-maxing if he attempts to accomplish that goal in game (by trying to track down sturdy armor or a magic sword, or by trying to get control of a kingdom). In order to be min-maxing, it has to be about deliberate mechanical optimization in a metagame sense.

Your second paragraph is interesting, but I have to disagree. I don't think whether you are min-maxing depends on your group. If you play in a group of people who all mechanically optimize to a high degree, I think it would be accurate to call them all min-maxers. I don't think it makes a difference whether a single person is even more obsessed than his compatriots.

But under the influence of video games, text-based computer games, and more recently MMORPGs, those roles became straightjackets that they patently weren't under forms of D&D prior to, say, 1990.

I started noticing this trend in the early 1990s at conventions: when I was playing a certain class, some or all of the rest of the table would assume I was going to play a certain way... "Why doesn't your wizard have spell X? It's the best spell for this kind of situation..." as if, despite the fact that there are hundreds of spells in the book, there are really only about 6-12 that are worth taking. Or they'd freak out if my wizard whipped out a dagger and tried to stab an orc, as if this was completely impossible.

Sure, there were people playing D&D with very fixed ideas of each 'role' before video games, but I don't think anyone would have been shocked by a wizard stabbing an orc in 1981 nor 1974, if that's what the situation called for. In my direct experience, the bigger fantasy video/computer games got, the tinier the roles in roleplaying became.

Electronic games took generalizations and turned them into straightjackets. I think that's what c'darren is on about. I feel the same way as he about how the creative freedom of pen and paper RPGs has become diminished.

Well Gnomeboy, you have a point there - the passage of time has certainly turned the general "The party should have at least one wizard and one thief, with a number of characters being warrior types," into a general sense that every party for every adventure should have one fighter, one cleric, one thief, and one wizard.

I have always assumed that was a result of the change from AD&D 2nd edition to D&D 3rd edition - as that is where the book started saying "a typical party is 4 characters," rather than the 6 to 9, and as such forced a heavier hand to be taken when class choice came into it.

In an AD&D adventure that said you should have one wizard and one thief, that leaves 4 to 7 other characters that are assumed to be present who haven't had their class suggested - but a D&D 3 and forward adventure saying the same leaves only 2... and in both cases someone is likely to say "we should have at least one cleric too," and further narrow things down.

At least, that's where I am putting my "blame" for the invention of the party role straight jacket - after all, I know quite a large number of gamers that play table-top RPGs and not any of the video game RPGs who still strap on those straight jackets like it is the most natural thing in the world for them to do.

...and if c'darren was meaning to say that he is upset at how he feels MMORPGs took a general idea and turned it into a straight jacket, he should have said that rather than what it is that he did say.

If I say all tanks are fighters, but not all fighters are tanks, does that clarify anything?

• A module may suggest that there be a fighter in the party -- but that need not be a heavily armored melee combatant. It might be just that, but it could be a swift, ranged fighter. For one example.

• It might suggest a wizard -- but it doesn't insist that fireball be a memorized spell.

• It might call for a thief, but that thief might be best at the disable/disarm stuff -- or best at scaling walls and creeping around, without much mechanical expertise.

And so on.

Meanwhile, MMORPG-style players strive for a fixed and inviolate group of a tank, a dps source, a healer, etc, as c'darren suggests. I'm not here to say which style is better -- but your post suggests that there is no stylistic difference, and never has been. I'm saying otherwise, because I've lived it.

As for what modules ask for in the way of characters, well, I looked through five or six at random that didn't ask for such stuff, and didn't hit one that had such a request until I pulled down G1, which says:

Only strong characters should adventure into the Steading... if the party is but 3 or 4 strong. 6th or 7th level characters are suggested only when the party numbers 5 or more and only if most of the party is of higher level. The optimum mix for a group is 9 characters of various classes, with an average experience level of at least 9th, and each should have 2 or 3 magic items.

In this case, there is not even a suggestion of which classes need apply. And it's pretty damned vague about levels, for that matter.

Much more laissez faire than computer games, from what I can tell. And more open to player-interpreted roles of fighter, wizard, cleric, thief.

If I had to guess -- and of course, I don't have to -- I might be tempted to suppose that you are in the camp of seeing things in that predefined structure anyway. Nothing wrong with that -- but please don't say there is no other vision. I cut my gaming teeth on that other approach, man. It's real.

Raven_Crowking wrote:If each player was allowed to pick an occupation, there are some which obviously reinforce certain character classes (wizard's apprentice) and some few would pick (gong farmer).

True, but in DCC, by the rules as written, Players *can* pick their character's Occupation.

Colin

Sure, so long as the judge agrees. But this is still a far cry from 3e or 4e in terms of "building" characters. Moreover, the judge is unlikely to agree that the player can do so if he always has some obvious agenda in his "strong sense of the character’s background".

RE: MMORGs etc: In early D&D, when I played it (Dec 1979+), it was often good to have different abilities in a party, but it was not unusual to have a party of all fighters, or even have a magic-user go on a solo quest. What resources you had available determined to some extent how you approached problems, but it was often wise to avoid relying upon the dice unless you had (1) no other alternative, or (2) jigged the odds into your favour. IOW, the difficulty, and much of the fun, of the game was in figuring out how to succeed (or survive!) using tools that were not specifically adapted to the tasks at hand. Many early modules have the "X spell doesn't work here" thing going so that the players would have to come up with some other solution to a problem. These modules - and the game, with its rust monsters, etc. - did everything it could to subvert the idea that Character X was for Role Y.

The advent of computer games meant that you couldn't come up with a unique solution - if the programmer didn't think of it, it simply did not work. Where Gygax & Co. strove to make you come up with something they hadn't thought of, the computer game must make you think of what the programmer thought of.

And that is where the "roles" of MMORPGs come from.....not the original source material, but the way that the original source material was folded, spindled, and mutilated to fit into the program.

GnomeBoy wrote:If I say all tanks are fighters, but not all fighters are tanks, does that clarify anything?

Not at all - not all tanks are fighters, in my experience. Sometimes tanks are clerics, and even occasionally thieves or a wizard here and there.

Anybody in the party that manages the durability needed to be able to wade into enemies (or send spell-conjured critters in your stead) and survive a while is a tank.

GnomeBoy wrote:• A module may suggest that there be a fighter in the party -- but that need not be a heavily armored melee combatant. It might be just that, but it could be a swift, ranged fighter. For one example.

Right, the module says "you need a fighter," and a fighter is predisposed to do those two things you mention... which some would call "meatshield" and "damage dealing" because that's the shorthand... the phrases that became "tank" and "dps."

GnomeBoy wrote:• It might suggest a wizard -- but it doesn't insist that fireball be a memorized spell.

I know what you are getting at, but most the hard-core "we need all the roles filled" player don't delineate which class must be which role... and those that do certainly don't try and turn wizards into DPS machines. So, bad example but your point stands... I've only see like two modules every suggest that certain spells be available to the party.

GnomeBoy wrote:• It might call for a thief, but that thief might be best at the disable/disarm stuff -- or best at scaling walls and creeping around, without much mechanical expertise.

I refuse to believe that the tendency of people to make certain demands of a thief's skills has anything to do with video games - if anything it is because the entire party can get into some really terrible situations while playing your typical module if they don't have a thief or if that thief is not able to deal with the traps they run into adequately.

Video games tend not to have instant death traps with no hope of reloading and retrying, old school D&D modules do, so players say "hey thief, get as good as you can at the one thing that there is no other way to prevent from killing us."

GnomeBoy wrote:Meanwhile, MMORPG-style players strive for a fixed and inviolate group of a tank, a dps source, a healer, etc, as c'darren suggests. I'm not here to say which style is better -- but your post suggests that there is no stylistic difference, and never has been. I'm saying otherwise, because I've lived it.

No way in the whole of Tarterus am I saying there is no stylistic difference between table-top and video games.

What I am saying is that "tank" came from "meatshield" and "dps" from "damage dealer" and "healer" from, well "healer" - and even "debuff" came from a shorthand of a particular style of wizard or cleric. MMORPGs didn't invent roles no matter how heavy and influence they have been to them in modern gaming.

GnomeBoy wrote:If I had to guess -- and of course, I don't have to -- I might be tempted to suppose that you are in the camp of seeing things in that predefined structure anyway. Nothing wrong with that -- but please don't say there is no other vision. I cut my gaming teeth on that other approach, man. It's real.

None of this has bearing on what I am getting at - and no, I don't pitch my tent in that camp.

I'm off in the woods, alone, playing the old school way of no particular necessity being cast upon the party while still able to acknowledge that a big HP, high AC melee character is describable as a "tank" or "meatshield" and has been since before such a thing as an MMORPG even existed.

I don't even play MMORPGs, never really got interested in them, but I refuse to sit by as people unfairly scapegoat them for things they dislike which have been in the hobby since before I was born.

You've dissected my point piece by piece admirably. There was no gestalt there -- just a series of unconnected ramblings...

And yes, it's true, I only imagined a time when your character was how you played it, not something that filled a niche in a matched set.

I merely dreamt that once upon a time a character might be called upon to perform any sort of task, and thus min/maxing wasn't much of an issue, since no one could be good at everything, with the meager rules we had. It never really existed.

I flat out lied about having noticed trends that changed how people played roleplaying games, trends that mysteriously track right along side electronic gaming in various forms, trends becoming more prominent and more pervasive right alongside the increasing popularity of electronic fantasy games and their becoming more and more mainstream. Or, rather, they don't run in parallel, since I've lied about the whole thing.

I never did have people show me such electronic games, back in the day, proclaiming them to be roleplaying games -- and I never once felt deep inside that that was fundamentally the wrong name for them, since there was no roleplaying happening as I understood the term in relation to games. And I don't still feel that they are to roleplaying, as what find-your-own-adventure books are to roleplaying, i.e. nothing to do with roleplaying.

I also don't imagine it's some grand, all-encompassing conspiracy that electronic games have changed pen-and-paper RPGs single-handedly.

But I do contend that they have created a box, where there wasn't one -- a box that now many people cannot think outside of...

GnomeBoy wrote:But I do contend that they have created a box, where there wasn't one

This is exactly it.

John Carter may have been the finest swordsman on two worlds, but being the finest swordsman on two worlds was a quality of John Carter, and did not define him.

A fighter might be a good idea for an adventure that the designer made combat-heavy, but unless you are running that module with a GM who cannot accept any other solution to the problems the players face, then there is no need for a "tank role". That the means of dealing with a problem are inherently limited by reprogramming all of its potential solutions perforce creates a box.

Prior to computer games, someone might have referred to their fighter as a "tank", or a "meat shield", but they didn't mean this is the sort of channelled, restricted sense that computer games do. To conflate these meanings, and claim that they are the same thing, creates a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between rpgs and crpgs, IMHO. It misses that a fundamental distinction that the rpg is always trying to get you to think of your character as more than the numbers on the sheet. In essence, to do the same thing, a computer game would have to allow you to express your character in ways that the program did not allow for....the programming would have to adapt to your ideas of what is feasible in a given situation.

And, when that day truly dawns, you can bet that MMORPG "roles" will be scorned by those playing the new, unlimited crpgs. "Get beyond a role" is likely to be the tagline of the new paradigm.

My point was as gnomeboy said, theses MMORPG conventions are becoming more and more of a straightjacket... in my group anyway. I want my character to be as I envision my character, not as a mere party role to fill and for which I have to choose all abilities and skills.

Thanks for clarifying your meaning cthulhudarren, not many folk would have come back after I made such a mess in the thread.

And again guys, I'm not saying that "meatshield" or "tank" as spoken by some guy playing some Red Box in 1983 means the exact same thing as "tank" when spoken by some dude playing any particular game in 2012, or that there isn't more of a drive in the gamer population in general to build the "right" party now than there was 20 or more years ago.

I'm saying that it is unfair to claim that MMORPGs invented the terms and play style in question.

Go ahead and rage against what roles have become in many people's eyes and the current usage of terms like "tank" and "damage dealer" as goals set for the character rather than incidental descriptions of capability, I do - just direct that rage more appropriately toward the general changes in RPG design philosophy rather than specifically at just one aspect that has influenced those changes.

Also, the next time you guys see me blaming everything "wrong" with modern RPGs on Monte Cook, try and snap me out of it (I hate my accidental hypocrisy by way of using him as a scape goat for all the things I dislike about fantasy RPGs made since the year 2000).

TheNobleDrake wrote:And again guys, I'm not saying that "meatshield" or "tank" as spoken by some guy playing some Red Box in 1983 means the exact same thing as "tank" when spoken by some dude playing any particular game in 2012, or that there isn't more of a drive in the gamer population in general to build the "right" party now than there was 20 or more years ago.

I'm saying that it is unfair to claim that MMORPGs invented the terms and play style in question.

No, the playstyle was probably in play in some fringe area before the advent of crpgs. But it is the advent of crpgs (not MMORPGs) where the scope narrows from the extraordinarily broad "what can I do with this?" to the extraordinarily narrow "what did the designer want me to do with this?". Porting the second scope into games whose primary strength is the first is, IMHO, a real mistake. There is an element of this which allows new players to know exactly what they should be trying to do in the game, but (1) I don't believe that tabletop games can compete with computer games for this type of play, and (2) the most interesting play occurs where the player is challenged to think outside the parameters of the designer.

Moreover, if you agree that the term X does not mean the same now as it did in the source games, then it seems unfair to blame the source games for the problem. It is not fair to blame Australia, for example, for "kangaroo courts" just because the term "kangaroo" comes from Australia and someone in Australia might have been guilty of the same.

Go ahead and rage against what roles have become in many people's eyes and the current usage of terms like "tank" and "damage dealer" as goals set for the character rather than incidental descriptions of capability, I do - just direct that rage more appropriately toward the general changes in RPG design philosophy rather than specifically at just one aspect that has influenced those changes.

I can argue about the problems of various designs, without thinking that any in isolation is "THE PROBLEM".

Also, "rage" is a little strong for how I feel about it. I have no problem with people playing whatever they like. I do have ideas, however, about what is viable in the longer term. Not necessarily correct ideas, but definite ideas.

Also, the next time you guys see me blaming everything "wrong" with modern RPGs on Monte Cook, try and snap me out of it (I hate my accidental hypocrisy by way of using him as a scape goat for all the things I dislike about fantasy RPGs made since the year 2000).

Some really cool ideas here, and I'm glad that the conversation has stayed civil rather than argumentative. Nice!

I think that there is a difference between natural progression and min/max. It was suggested that a character might desire better weapons, etc, and I don't see this at all as a min/max situation. Even if the GM hands out weapons with gaudy plusses and armor which is nearly invulnerable to all attack ... that's not a min/max issue but instead is a GM style thing.

In the same way, I see that roles or stereotypes in character design isn't a bad thing. A fighter should aspire to be the best fighter he can be (within the framework of the rules) and a wizard the best spellslinger he can be (within the framework of the rules) and a thief ... you get the picture. That in itself isn't a min/max to me, either.

I contend that a true min/max would be a situation where a player can "work the system" or somehow bend the rules to gain an unfair advantage. Some would call this strategy or clever character design, but to me it's a min/max. This isn't trying to judge whether players should be allowed to tweak the rules to their advantage, but simply a label of what is occuring.

I think that simple rules sets tend to be vauge in application and are harder to min//max, while complex rules sets tend to be more specific so that a clever "rules lawyer" can find ways around the intent of the rule. This means that OD&D is a lot harder to min/max than 3E, which isn't a fault of the designers but is a function of the complexity of the rules system. One neat thing about DCC is that the rules are basically simple, which tends to lessen the min/max effect somewhat.

"The worthy GM never purposely kills players' PCs, He presents opportunities for the rash and unthinking players to do that all on their own."
-- Gary Gygax
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!"
-- Dave Arneson

finarvyn wrote:...I'm glad that the conversation has stayed civil rather than argumentative. Nice!

No one brought up the supposed 3e insistence on 'balanced encounters', so I didn't have to strangle anyone.

Dammit! I just brought it up!

*strangles self*

finarvyn wrote:...A fighter should aspire to be the best fighter he can be...

*cough cough* *rubs neck*

I'd go further (in another direction) and say they should aspire to be who they are... I try to give my characters a motivation for adventuring, and that doesn't necessarily include 'being' their class. One example: I had a character who's motivation was finding his missing father. He was a fighter by class, but from his perspective, he didn't see himself as a fighter -- he was just learning things as he went along into uncharted territory, struggling to survive to continue his search. He was no one's champion nor hero, no title holder, and no paragon of anything (except maybe commitment) and didn't strive to be one. I couldn't tell you if he was the best fighter in the group, or if he was the best fighter I ever played, because that's not where my mind was...

Sure, a fighter could aspire to be the best fighter possible -- but there are other goals, too.

When I am not all riled up beyond the point of being reasonable, neither do I, which is why I used the term "scape goat."

3rd edition D&D was a point in the life of D&D where a lot of changes were made that just blew my mind - though listing those is a whole different thread - and Monte is the name that sticks out in my mind from that era because he not only worked on D&D, but also on multiple "variant player's handbook," type games. So in my mind, especially when I "get going" on something, Monte wrote basically the same game 3 or 4 times and never bothered to actually fix any of the problems (subjective problems, of course) that D&D 3rd edition caused.

"The worthy GM never purposely kills players' PCs, He presents opportunities for the rash and unthinking players to do that all on their own."
-- Gary Gygax
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!"
-- Dave Arneson